Vultures Rush In
by usefulobject
Summary: After Mordor falls, a hunter from the Misty Mountains joins a displaced Isengard Uruk in hopes of claiming some of the loot in the ruins of Sauron's domain. Along the journey they develop unexpected (totally expected) feelings. Can they get the big cash money wad or will they die like pigs in hell? Slash.
1. Dear Lord Sauron, Thanks For Nothing

This probably will not update quickly. It was originally something I made a long time ago when I had a lot less confidence in my writing and rarely posted any of it (granted, it _was_ pretty bad back then, but I now realize "wrote a dumb story" is not a prison-worthy offense, no matter what the internet tells you). I decided to dust it off because I DON'T KNOW. I'm trying to hammer it into shape to the best of my abilities, but that's gonna take a while.

* * *

Razashûk didn't like trees, and they didn't like him.

He scuttled across the forest floor in timid bursts, avoiding as many big trees as possible while trying not to get whipped on the legs by the tiny sucker branches poking out of the ground, feeding on the massive gnarled roots that seemed to place themselves right where he'd trip on them. Some forests weren't so bad, like dead scrublands and burned groves with only hints of life peeking through the ashes, but ancient places like this were agony to sneak through because the trees had been around long enough to know exactly what he was and how to do everything in their meager power to kill him by inches.

Stinging needles of sunlight pierced the canopy, and Razashûk was grateful that for once this wasn't anything that required him to be terribly stealthy. Between the stumbling and the cursing, he'd probably woken up everything for a mile around him. Good thing that consisted of birds and rodents instead of Elves. If there ever had been any in these parts, they had the sense to haul ass out of there long ago.

* * *

The predicament he was in had started off nobly enough. Talk of the war had long since reached even the most obscure corners of the Misty Mountains. Subtle noises in the wind and thunder had called to him, to take up his knife and bow for a greater purpose than picking off straggling animals and keeping scavengers away from the cavern entrances. And so he'd struck out to leave the simple life behind and seek his fortune in the heart of the Land of Shadows, as you do, but the world had displayed its usual sense of fairness only a few weeks into the journey.

One bright morning, just as he was slinking towards a hole to hide and rest in, a coldness cut through the air and he felt his legs crumple beneath him as his breath stuck in his throat and choked him. When he came to, he felt numb and slow, as if he was walking in a river of muck surrounded by a thick fog. His lungs ached and he could have sworn his heart was beating in a different rhythm.

No one needed to tell Razashûk what had happened.

Of course, he couldn't just turn around and go home. Chief Burzash would finally declare him an official disappointment, his family would make fun of him beyond the usual, and he'd still be right back where he started, possibly with more duties involving cleaning up Warg shit. Besides, it would be adding insult to injury to the rest of the tribe. Losing their divine guiding force and gaining a spineless quitter was a poor bargain, and soothing others in times of grief and panic wasn't exactly one of his strong points.

He wandered in no particular direction, stopping at length to mope and sleep and hope that each time he woke up it would have been a stupid dream and Lord Sauron's gaze still enveloped the world.

After several aimless days, he was knocked out of the haze one evening by a towering Uruk-hai who helpfully shoved him into the puckerbrush and smacked him for leaving footprints, shortly before a small patrol of bedraggled Men passed through, close enough that their stink made him squint. Fortunately they didn't seem too alert and didn't even notice any signs of strange foreign boots mucking up the ground. Whatever they were after, it wasn't Orcs.

"You're welcome," the Uruk said, after they were safely out of sight and earshot. Razashûk had never dealt with any of Saruman's creations directly, but always heard they were a bunch of smug bastards, and this one certainly wasn't helping his case.

He bore the mark of the White Hand on his armor, and his hair was tied back in a futile stab at preventing it from being a tangled mess. It was shot through with sun-bleached streaks the color of rust. The mere thought of spending that much time in daylight made Razashûk's skin itch.

The Uruk squinted and studied him for a moment. "You're from the mountains, I reckon."

"So?"

"So you'd know how to get through places like that. Tunnels and trails and such, off the beaten path. Tell you what, for as long as we're heading the same direction, you navigate the way, and I'll make sure you don't get killed."

"Fair enough," he said. He wasn't sure why. But at the very least it couldn't hurt to have a large wall of flesh between him and any more trouble that came his way, and they trekked together over the bumpy terrain, making uneasy small talk.

Said wall of flesh was named Durgrat, and he was headed for the vague destination of Somewhere Out East after his prospects back home suddenly took a turn for the worse. "Isengard shit the bed," he explained with the typical eloquence Razashûk would soon grow accustomed to. Razashûk wasn't clear on the whole thing, as his tribe had stayed out of that particular mess. Chief Burzash decided the idea of some weird geezer in fancy clothes promising them the moon in exchange for a bunch of mangy Wargs and tarnished swords smelled a bit off. But Razashûk had got wind of stories of a terrible flood, and for all his bluster, a complete failure on the White Wizard's part to prevent it or do anything to salvage the wreckage of his once-proud fortress.

After a long stretch of silence, Durgrat glanced around nervously then leaned in towards the other Orc. "I have something to show you."

Razashûk glowered. "You must be very new to the world indeed if you think anyone's gonna fall for that. Fuck off."

"Don't flatter yourself, _snaga_. Anyway, I don't have it on me."

Razashûk let that slide. "Why not?"

"Too valuable to carry around here, so close to Men. If I die, at least it won't fall into their hands."

"Ah," he replied. It was probably a bad idea to let slip he wasn't quite certain where he was and had no idea there were Mannish settlements nearby. He'd abandoned the path he originally planned after losing any compelling reason to follow it.

"I stashed it a bit south of here, past, uh, all that." Durgrat waved his arm at a thick mass of trees a couple hundred yards away.

"That shouldn't take too long to bolt through. It won't be pleasant, but not much of anything is lately. We'll survive."

Durgrat grumbled and suggested an alternate route over the plains that would take a little longer, and at first Razashûk thought he was just being a big showoff about his special fancy skin that let him shrug off sunlight like it was nothing. But oh no, he insisted. He had to go _around_ the forest and didn't even want to be too close to the edge. Razashûk elected to suck it up and charge on through, while Durgrat promised to meet him on the other side.

So much for that legendary Uruk-hai toughness. Razashûk had to assume Durgrat was still alive only through some bizarre blessing from the depths of the Void, unseen forces keeping him around for a great destiny yet to be revealed.

* * *

The sun was gone and splotches of clouds fitfully blotted out the moon. Razashûk exhaled in relief, both from the escape from the gauntlet of angry foliage, and the sight of a small fire not too far off in the distance, meaning Durgrat hadn't just been setting some weird trap or had ditched him like he'd halfway expected. He hoisted an armload of dry branches, which he liked to think of as one final insult to the forest, and trudged towards the flickering light.

"How was your little stroll through the sunny field?"

"Fine," the Uruk said, despite the blood-soaked cloth wrapped around his upper arm.

A few odd items were strewn on the ground around him. There was a rough iron pot on the fire, bubbling with some unknown murky substance. "It's stew, sort of," said Durgrat. "There's meat parts in it." He gave it a sideways glance, wrinkling up his nose. "I tried."

Razashûk did his best not to make a face right back at him. An Uruk feeling the need to actually cook a piece of meat didn't bode well for its condition. He took a cautious slurp and was relieved that whatever was in the attempted stew, at least none of it was still moving. It was thin yet oddly gelatinous, full of mysterious lumps, and tasted kind of like how pond scum smelled. But it wasn't as if he had much of a choice in the matter, with his stomach clawing at itself for the good part of the last couple of days. Food was food, and he'd had worse things in his mouth.

After ingesting as much of it as he could tolerate, Razashûk got back to business. "About this fantastic thing you insisted on sharing. I hope you didn't mean that stuff."

"No, it's better. Much better. It's actually good, even."

Razashûk made a non-committal grunt.

"Trust me," he said, reaching into a soggy leather satchel that Razashûk had figured was empty. "I nicked this from Sharkey's library. Unimportant things don't end up in there." He thrust a thick, rolled-up parchment that had definitely seen better days towards Razashûk.

"The fuck were _you_ doing in a library?"

Durgrat huffed. "That's not the point. Go on, look at it."

He carefully uncurled the battered scroll, revealing a somewhat archaic map of the Eastern side of the world.

It was in a slightly different dialect than he was used to, but Razashûk understood the legend well enough through the odd spellings and outdated names, and was suddenly glad his father couldn't see him now to jab him with a well-aimed "I told you so" about the usefulness of learning to read old Morgul runes. He recognized the borderlands and the Black Gate, a thick bar of ink standing out among little wisps of valleys and river tributaries. Though he'd never been there, he'd heard enough stories to know where the _Tarks_ now encroached on Mordor, and the general layout of the vast plains separating the weak and the lost from the denizens of the black city.

But it was one corner in particular that really caught his eye: the one marked with a scratchy drawing, clearly added in later by a different hand. It showed a large box nestled in a pile of jewels, coins, and weapons, surrounded by lurid and esoteric descriptions like "The Witch-king's Daughter" and "Piercer of a Thousand Hearts".

"Do you understand now?" said Durgrat. "Yeah, go ahead and laugh at my education, but even I can catch on to that."

Blessing from the Void, indeed.


	2. Bad Music for Bad People

Another short one. I'm afraid it got a bit info-dumpy...

* * *

The sky was mercifully gloomy and overcast as they shambled along a rocky stretch of ground. But the terrain was slow going, and the still air and solitude weren't doing much for Durgrat either. The tunnels under Orthanc were no palace, but they had their advantages. There was always someone to talk to, for one. Razashûk seemed all too comfortable with being quiet.

It was a common enough misconception that the key to life down in the caverns of Isengard was merely a question of being sufficiently vicious. It wasn't that simple. Durgrat could manage mean easily enough, it was just the wrong _kind_ of mean. Despite his size, he lacked any real commanding presence, which was just as well since he also didn't have the drive or desire to go about bossing everyone around. Might as well paint a target on your back.

But when, say, Captain Garmog snarled that his favorite dagger was missing, or some unlucky grunt was certain that quiver had exactly eight arrows in it just a few minutes ago, Durgrat would peer out from whatever shadowy corner he was skulking in and smile to himself.

Soon enough he'd grown bored with pilfering from kitchens and storerooms, and he'd swiped enough stuff to bribe the guards into letting him into one of Saruman's forbidden study rooms, which proved quite lucrative. In addition to the map, he'd gained such riches as a particularly shiny stone that had been weighing down some old parchments, a slim volume of erotic poetry he couldn't read (but that had illustrations), four assorted iron keys, and a small pouch full of mystery dust. He figured if it wasn't valuable on its own, maybe he could persuade some dimwit into thinking it was magical or at least had fun effects when snorted, and gain a few extra coins.

His ambitious daydream of becoming a small-time con artist was interrupted by Razashûk piercing the air with a yelp. He turned and saw the Orc hopping around and furiously swatting at his shoulder while a string of Orkish swear words burst forth from his snarling mouth. Durgrat wasn't familiar with the dialect, but got the general gist of it.

"Settle down. It's not like someone shot you. Though they might, if you keep yelling like that."

"Easy to say when you're not the one getting shit-bombed by birds. Fucking fancy rats, that's all they are." He squinted disapprovingly up at the sky, as if more of them were hiding in wait behind the clouds.

Durgrat shrugged. Back in Isengard getting shat on by a crow was practically a rite of passage; you knew you'd made it when one of the White Wizard's messengers chose to let you know exactly what it thought of you.

* * *

Razashûk had got a better handle on their location after passing through territory with a clear view of the mountains in the distance. He marked a tentative path on the map with a piece of charcoal, careful not to damage the ancient ink underneath. He trusted the map was fairly accurate despite its age, and had so far managed to squelch the urge to make any clever additions like stink lines over Lorien or a new pond around Orthanc.

Speaking of which, if Durgrat had any duplicity on his mind, he'd apparently elected to slowly drive Razashûk mad rather than just kill him and eat his guts and be done with it. He was prone to saying half of something and then just trailing off as if Razashûk could magically hear whatever was rattling around in that thick skull of his. Maybe there was something to those jokes about Isengarders having only one brain to share between them, and without Saruman's power the enchanted threads connecting it all had been cut.

He decided to change course since having half a conversation was even more annoying than dead silence. He'd just yammer on so that the Uruk couldn't get part of a word in edgewise.

He shared a story from his childhood, regaling Durgrat with the tale of the clever young huntress Borrarz, who tricked a treacherous band of Elf marauders into falling into their own traps and made off with their treasure, laughing all the way home while wearing a cloak dyed red with their blood. Razashûk found himself more spirited about it than he would've thought, providing obnoxious voices for the Elves and even snarls from Borrarz's beloved Warg. He felt a blink of embarrassment as he realized what he was doing, but Durgrat looked amused enough, and not in a "Get a load of this idiot!" way.

Durgrat told the somewhat less inspiring story of the time the shifty whiteskin guarding the prison cages accidentally fell backwards onto a knife about a dozen times.

When they grew too exhausted to go any further and the light began swiftly fading, Razashûk plunked down on the ground and started to build a sad little nest out of his belongings. Durgrat followed suit, kicking a few rocks out of the way before flopping onto his back.

Razashûk squirmed. His stomach pinched in on itself and made a squelching sound. Come morning, he'd have to break it to his companion that there was no avoiding the forest if they wanted to eat. This part of the plains wasn't hospitable to anything edible, plant or animal alike.

The darkness was no comfort. The air was frosty and damp, and Razashûk wasn't used to sleeping at night when he was outside the caves. Worse yet, only a few feet away Durgrat was making some horrendously familiar noises, grunting along with a soft rhythmic slapping. Perhaps he thought Razashûk was asleep or perhaps he just didn't care, the important thing was that it was filling Razashûk with an intensely uncomfortable mix of sensations that made him want to flop over and slug Durgrat in the ribs. He pulled his blanket over his ears and held it there, squinting his eyes shut and hoping the combination of silence and cold would make his face stop burning.

Starting something over it and thus causing frustration seemed like a very bad idea. So far the big lummox had been surprisingly calm towards him, so Razashûk figured it was only a matter of time before the massive boiling cauldron of white-hot Uruk-hai rage he was undoubtedly repressing spilled over, and he would rather that happen when something or someone thwarted them.

He curled himself into a ball, still trying to adjust to the rough ground, and after Durgrat made one last long groan and fell quiet he found his irritation tempered by a twinge of sympathy for him and his kin. No mother but the earth, and no father but a voice on the wind. How were they supposed to know not to act like turds?

Just when he felt his eyelids begin to droop, Durgrat rolled over on his side and stared at him.

"Razashûk?"

"What."

"Do you know any songs?" he asked. "It's one of those things, you know?" He let out a short sigh at Razashûk's blank expression. "Nobody ever quite got around to explaining singing. I mean, I understand what it _is_, just not why anyone would do that on purpose."

"Uh. Well. Songs have the purpose of um, telling a story or expressing a thought by using..." He felt like a child kissing up to one of the scribes, trying to look smart by parroting things he didn't quite grasp. "Look, I'll just sing you one, all right?"

That was also a very bad idea.

It didn't help that on top of having a voice like a wagonload of gravel being carted over a bumpy hill, the only proper songs Razashûk knew were about things like getting stabbed in the gut, or being taunted by ghosts while buried alive under an avalanche, or bleeding out in a cold wet ditch after the town guards spotted you and shot you, and you'd only gone near the village in the first place because you were dying of starvation and had already picked over the bones of the only person you'd ever truly loved.

"Thanks, I think," said Durgrat. His face looked none too grateful, and Razashûk laughed.

"Pfft! I'm no songbird. We've never been ones for that sort of thing, not where I'm from. I doubt it explained much."

"No, it did. I see how it'd ease your burden to sing, because it makes everyone else just as miserable as you are."

_You might just be all right after all,_ Razashûk thought.

* * *

Razashûk awoke to the pain of sunlight, and hastily stuffed away everything while wearing his threadbare blanket like a cloak in a vain attempt to stave it off. As he expected, there was a rough trail cutting through the edge of the forest nearby, and he shuffled towards it. "Come on, it's either go through here or eat dirt." _Or me. Best not to even joke about it..._

Durgrat apparently was in no mood to argue, perhaps cowed by the possibility of another round of traditional Orkish singing. He hissed through his teeth and trudged in, his hands balled into fists. After a few minutes of unenthusiastic survival, Razashûk was about to finally get his chance to be on the giving end of an "I told you so" when the Uruk stopped and glanced around.

"Did you hear that?"

Razashûk brushed him off. "That's just forest stuff. There's _supposed_ to be annoying little noises everywhere, from lizards and squirrels and all that."

They pressed onward, but the fragile calm was shattered when he tripped and felt something snag around his legs. The Uruk also thudded to the ground, though only one of his ankles had gotten tangled up in a crude snare.

"Squirrels, huh," said Durgrat.

"Toll collector!" a high, raspy voice crooned. Razashûk twitched at the sound. The voice's owner dropped out of the canopy and scrambled down a tree trunk into view, and he made a pained grimace at the sight.

"You've got to be fucking joking."


End file.
